An Eye for an Eye
by Kay the Cricketed
Summary: [Doumeki x Watanuki vague implications, SPOILERS for Vol 8] A drabble about what it means to share things, lessons to learn, and the tentative grasp of destiny.


_An Eye for an Eye_

by Kay

Disclaimer: Last attempts to buy CLAMP were met with disdain. Refused the bent pennies and bobby pins. Cheap hags.

Author's Notes: Vague implications of Doumeki x Watanuki, but if you read the series, it probably won't kill you. You can ignore it equally as well. Very short. Spoilers for eye timeline somewhere around volume 8. Thank you so much for reading, I truly appreciate it and hope you enjoy my minor venture into the fandom. :) :) :) Thank you!

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Watanuki has never had to _share_ anything.

Oh, he's done brief exchanges before—conversations, silences, a pencil in class, a boxed lunch. These things are fleeting, however, and easy to give away. Watanuki could do without them altogether, in fact, although he's no inclination to start any time soon. The things that people share in this world that _last_, that's what he misses out on. That's what he wonders about. How strange, in a bittersweet way, it would seem to share what really _matters_. A home. An understanding. A secret. A trust. A morning. A warmth.

Then Yuuko comes into his life (like a train wreck) and suddenly he's sharing _everything_. His cooking, his cleaning skills, his time, his energy, his abilities, his apartment (that one time for three hours, and the only reason Yuuko sent Doumeki to complete the errand was because she must have damn well known it would irritate Watanuki _that much more_), his entire life scooped up in some insane woman's hands and handed out like free candy. It's ridiculous. It's impossibly frustrating.

Watanuki's learning all kinds of new things.

But what really gets Watanuki, is not how it feels when he shares something. It's how he feels when someone shares something with _him._

It pisses him off, that Doumeki thinks it's his right to suddenly cut Watanuki's life in half and steal part of it. It pisses him off even more that Doumeki rips up his own and gives Watanuki a piece without even asking if he really wants it, when all it does it clutter up space and demand more attention and get bigger and bigger and bigger. Suddenly he has all kinds of things he's never had before—shared lunches, broken arrows, jackets that have gotten too small for Doumeki but swim on Watanuki (not that he tried it on, but it's a costly thing, living alone, and autumn comes without warning sometimes, and there had been one evening where it had been between getting sick or five minutes looking like a fool, so he chose fool, chose it and it smelled like bow polish and the shrine's library dust), jobs, terrible moments, wonderful moments, an _eye_ for goodness sake, how does that _work_—

And it frustrates Watanuki. It baffles him. Eats away at him. All the things he's giving up, all the things he's getting back. He wonders, does everyone put up with this? A constant run to keep the balance, the guilt, the reluctant warmth burning fiercely in their chest (because Watanuki does _everything_ fiercely, can't stop). It's exhausting. Maddening. Exhilarating. Like pain and pleasure and want and have, all rolled together. Like he's stamping his mark, Watanuki is here and Doumeki has acknowledged it, couldn't stop if he wanted to.

Half and half, then. They'll share the burden. All the burdens. But what scares Watanuki the most is that someday, maybe, he'll decide Doumeki keeps things safer in his own hands and will give it _all_ to that bastard. Not that he deserves it. Not that Watanuki plans on giving himself away. That's stupid. It wouldn't be fair to Doumeki. It wouldn't be fair to Watanuki, either.

And it's becoming the last thing left he can't share with anybody, this secret wish tucked somewhere below his lungs and pressed against the hard beating of his heart. At least, until Doumeki steals it away, as well. Until it's taken up all the empty spaces where Doumeki plucked pieces of Watanuki out that Watanuki didn't even realize he had, or thought shameful—the bravery, the loneliness, the careful touch of a friend, the anger, the embarrassing need for a stone upon the earth when all else is torn up by the wind. A tiny wish, growing. Until it's so big that even Watanuki can't ignore it.

He can always feel it, flickering in his chest, its wings too weak to struggle out of his throat. Every time, between his eyes closing and sleep, upon waking, when the day's are just hard enough that the fortress that is Watanuki cracks at the foundation a bit more:

_'Just a little, I hope I see you again tomorrow.'_


End file.
